The Night of the Sleepover (Sleepover #1) by Kerry Wilkinson
Genre: Psychological thriller, Suspense
Read: 16th October 2023
Published: 23rd October 2023
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Four girls close their eyes. Only one wakes up.
Leah and her three best friends get changed into their pyjamas, eat pizza and argue about what film to watch. They laugh together until the early hours. But the next morning, Leah blinks open her eyes and sees three empty sleeping bags. The other girls are gone.
Twenty years later. In her small hometown, still-haunted Leah has never been able to shake off the rumours and whispers. How could she have slept through it all? She must know what happened.
Now, a documentary is being made about the night Leah’s best friends disappeared. Is the truth about to come out?
Then an anonymous email arrives in Leah’s inbox. ‘Stop them’.
Somebody out there knows what happened the night of the sleepover. Is Leah in terrible danger? And will she ever find her missing friends – or are some secrets meant to be kept forever?
An absolutely addictive psychological thriller with twists and turns that will make you gasp. Anyone who loves Lisa Jewell, Shari Lapena or The Perfect Marriage won’t be able to put this down.
MY THOUGHTS:
And then there was one...
It feels like so long since I've had a "Kerry-fix" so naturally I was eager to dive into this little mystery surrounding a teenage sleepover. And while the little town in which they live is not referred to by name, I do note the mention of Whitecliff with regards to a slightly non-important character. And it made me ponder, will there be more Whitecliff mysteries? But back to the sleepover...
Just before Christmas 1999, when the world was awash with the hype surrounding the Y2K millenium bug that was supposedly going to crash all computers whent he clock ticked over on New Year's Eve, Leah and her three best friends - Vicky, Jasmine and Harriet - are enjoying a sleepover complete with vodka, pizza and gossip. As sleep slowly came, each of the girls crashed out and all was quiet. When Sunday morning dawned with its choral cacophony of birdsong, Leah opened her eyes and looked over at her sleeping friends...except they weren't there. All three of them were gone, their sleeping bags empty. And they were never seen again.
Now twenty four years later, what happened to the girls has remained a mystery although it continues to haunt the town that has never fully recovered. Although she has tried to move on, Leah remains in the same town having married (and divorced) and now has a 14 year old Zac, who is not much younger than she was when her whole life changed in that one single night. Almost everyone in town remembers that night and none moreso than the missing girls' families - Deborah, Harriet's mother who became a surrogate mother to Leah, and Vicky's elder sister by three years, Esther, who is now a solicitor...and also returned to the town.
It seems none can escape the past, especially when it shapes so much of who you were and who you are now. Then along comes Owen, the younger brother of Jasmine, who is now a filmmaker of sorts and has returned to town with his team to make a documentary on the missing girls' disappearance in the hope it will turn up new evidence that will inevitably lead to the truth about what happened the night of the sleepover. He has a whole host of people he wants to interview, and who of them is more important than the remaining survivor of that night but Leah? Of course, Leah is reluctant to drag up the past whilst at the same time wanting answers as to what happened to her friends so when her interview comes around, is goes from bad to worse and she ends up storming out.
And then things only seem to get worse for Leah when she becomes the recipient of seemingly threatening emails warning her to do whatever it takes to stop the documentary from going ahead. But how is she to stop it? And why should she? After all, she wants to know what happened to her friends on that fateful night.
The story unfolds solely through Leah's narrative in the present day as well as switching back to before, during and after the sleepover, as gradually readers are given more insights into the girls and pondering what may have happened on that night.
This was indeed an intriguing read though I did feel there was a lot of fluff in the middle, probably put there as red herrings to sidetrack us. Well, it didn't matter because I was thoroughly stumped as to how three girls could just up and vanish overnight and leaving one behind. How could no one know what happened? Someone, surely, knows something. The question is...who? And when it is revealed you will be surprised and then shocked as a flurry of twists are delivered in quick succession. I see some were outraged at such an ending but I felt it was a delicious twist and nicely played. Particularly as I certainly didn't see it coming (not often that happens...lol)
The story suffices perfectly well as a standalone but there is a sequel around the corner though I'm not sure how it will relate to this one as I found everything was resolved nicely. But I am looking forward to read it!
Overall, another engaging and intriguing read from Kerry Wilkinson complete with his trademark wit peppered throughout.
I would like to thank #KerryWilkinson, #Netgalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheNighOfTheSleepover in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Kerry Wilkinson has had No.1 crime bestsellers in the UK, Australia, Canada, South Africa and Singapore. He has also written two top-20 thrillers in the United States. His book, Ten Birthdays, won the RNA award for Young Adult Novel of the Year in 2018 and Close To You won the International Thriller Award for best ebook in 2020.
As well as his million-selling Jessica Daniel series, Kerry has written the Silver Blackthorn trilogy - a fantasy-adventure serial for young adults - a second crime series featuring private investigator Andrew Hunter, plus numerous standalone novels. He has been published around the world in more than a dozen languages.
Originally from the county of Somerset, Kerry spent way too long living in the north of England, picking up words like 'barm' and 'ginnel'.
When he's short of ideas, he rides his bike, hikes up something, or bakes cakes. When he's not, he writes it all down.
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